Tickets & Travel

GulfstreamG550

Recently I have had to take a few quick business trip usually day trips or overnight, and the tickets are about 30-40% more expensive then that was a few months ago. Everyone is traveling, I love that the streets of Kuwait a really empty and you can drive to places without being stuck in traffic for 20 mins. But the prices are ridiculous, all plane prices are up, with British Airways leading the way, Emirates is pretty damn expensive too, even Jazeera raised their prices. Its funny I just had to take a quick trip to Amman and Jazeera’s business class was just as expensive as Wataniya’s Business Class when Jazeera’s business is just a regular economy class with an extra seat next to you. Wataniya’s prices are up too, booking short notice is not the best idea, but at least it wasn’t too damaging. And now from the last few weeks of July to the first two weeks of August its almost impossible to find tickets back to Kuwait, everyone left for summer and they are trying to squeeze as much vacation as possible before coming back for Ramadan. Its going to get packed as soon as everyone is back.

Fines & Tickets


The Ministry of Interior really does have its work cut out for it, they seem to be getting worse and worse and the processes they setup for fees or giving out types of fines. I check on a monthly basis if there are any fines and I usually pay them right away, I have managed to stay out of the radar or in order for a while now, keeping it within limits of tolerance. Then I check last week to find three speeding tickets from past months and four parking tickets, with no specific dates. The speeding tickets seem very random, only two have the month date not even the day and one just say 2009. So basically they can give you any speeding ticket and you can’t even contest it, the funny part is two of the three speeding tickets were in cars registered in my name but are the home cars. All together with the parking tickets they added up to 100 KD, but the MOI guy told me that I will have points on my driving license and one more and I will have my license in Kuwait revoked for three months. I asked how would a father who usually registers all the cars in his name sort this out, his son is driving, his daughter, his wife, or the house driver. So basically they don’t have a solution for this and only fine the person who is registered to the car, in the US and the UK you would have a chance to prove that you aren’t the driver so you wouldn’t be the recipient of the points. They really didn’t think through all the possible situations, I really think that they make the system work in a way so that you have to talk to someone to get these dumb issues sorted out.

Tickets

  • 136 in a 120 in June of 09
  • 129 in an 100 April of 09(Mine)
  • 122 in an 80 in 09
  • 4 Parking Tickets

Note: This is the solution told to me from the MOI guy, that I do not know, is to get file for a replacement license and keep to driving licenses and when they want my drivers license for three months I just give them one of them and the request to pull my dirvers license will be revoked from the system and I can drive with the one driver’s license. And this is from a guy that I don’t even know, they really know how to make a very dumb system work.

Intense Police in Kuwait

Recently I have been insanely busy with GulfRun pretty much for the past three weeks. Modifying my car, the car show, and everything leading up to the main event at the Bahrain International Circuit. I had my Landcruiser covered with GulfRun stickers, and my Beemer was covered with stickers for all GulfRun stickers, this attracted all kinds of attention and some of it unwanted such as the police. I haven’t had a speeding ticket or any other ticket except for parking in the past two years, but in the past three weeks I have had my license taken taken twice, and my car registration taken twice as well. They are on a vengeful track these days stopping cars left, right, and center. The police officer took my car registration because of stickers, the sound of the exhaust, and front plate. Its ridiculous, I got it back the next day but why the hell so much trouble for people, can’t they just give tickets and let people just pay the fines without inconveniencing them for stupid things. It drives me nuts that they waste their time on random stupid things like these when they could really be helping people, I remember the last time I called 777 it took them over 45 minutes to find us.

After speaking to a few people who work in the Ministry of Interior and they were telling me they have orders since the beginning of November to go on this rampage, so people should be vigilant and I for one could do without all this trouble.

Link: Flickr

A Ticket

Now this an interesting story that took place around 6:05 pm on the way to Bnaider, just before Julai’a. I was heading to a friend’s shalaih going to go pick up a cart for GulfRun. I was pretty much cruising between 120 and 140 kph, people were driving normally and there were cars flying past me.

As I got to the bridge I see a police car and think nothing of it, a Mercedes just flew past me a lot faster then me.  I had my legs somewhat crossed since I had cruise control on 140 kph at that point and my right foot on the floor hovering next to the break if need be, the road was empty and I wasn’t in much of hurry so I was taking it easy listening to the music. Then the cop car pulls up right behind me and tells me to pull over. So I do, I step out of the car and ask the guy whats wrong he said I was speeding at 150+, I told him I had it cruise control at 140 kph and a Mercedes sedan passed me going at least 180+ why didn’t he stop him. He proceeded to ignore at this point after asking for my drivers license and registration. I gave him both and all he asked for was the time. He asked if I was “Mukhalif aw Ghair Mukhalif”, meaning guilty or not guilty, I said not.  He gave me the ticket and I proceeded to take my car registration and license, he said what are you doing, I said you gave me the ticket what else do you want. He then took my license with him and told me to go to Igrain Number 3, and I can drive for one week with the ticket. I said fine and left the guy, I was pretty pissed off that he took my license and lied about my speed, he said he caught me on a speeding camera even though he was moving which makes it impossible. I called a few people to see what I do this and hoping to have this resolved quickly.